Letters to the Editor
starrhopping
Published Letters: 4
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OT but important
[Read the article: The false Beltway script never changes]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]You're absolutely right, of course, Glenn. These people are pathetic.
But what's driving me out of lurker mode is this: I see no sense of alarm in the left/progressive blogosphere that Hillary is probably going to be our candidate. Hillary, who has never stood up to Bush in any way that matters. Shouldn't we stop her? How do we stop her?
It was clear 4 years ago that Dem primary voters don't have a clue on how to select an electable, or suitable, candidate. How can we turn the momentum to Edwards? Or Dodd, now that he has stepped up to the plate?
You, Digby, FDL, and others, seem strangely silent on this issue. And given our strange, front-loaded primary system, maybe soon it will be too late.
Why don't the other candidates have ads that point out that we have had a Bush or a Clinton in the number 1 or 2 spot for 27 years already? Isn't that enough?
If nominated, she is likely to lose. If elected, she is CERTAIN to trash our progressive values, if not on the domestic front, then surely on the foreign policy front.
Thoughts, anyone?
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Who Should Stop Her?
[Read the article: The false Beltway script never changes]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]Who do you think should stop her? Who has inspired anyone to get behind them? People didn't just pick Howard Dean out of a hat in 2004. He triggered the enthusiasm that he did by inspiring people with passion and conviction and a refusal to be stuffed into the Beltway box.
Who is doing that now?
OK, Glenn, her opponents aren't, any of them, Howard Dean. I lament that fact. But are you seriously suggesting that we should just acquiesce in Hillary's coronation?
Isn't it possible that one reason the other candidates haven't gotten any traction is HC's overwhelming name recognition? And fat campaign coffers? These things enabled her to take an early lead. That early lead engenders the meme that she is a "winner."
Why can't we have a discussion, every other day, on your blog and others, on who should it be? This issue is CRITICAL, and time is getting short. I think it should be Edwards. Or Dodd. They are both fine candidates. And neither of them would unite the right-wing base against them the way Hillary would. (Their hatred of her is irrational, of course. She's closer to them ideologically than the others,)
Dem primary voters, left to themselves, cannot be counted on to do the right thing --see Howard Dean and Ned Lamont. The primary system is broken, but it's too late to fix it in this cycle.
You do such great work here. But we get it -- the media commentators are morons. But can't we skewer them later, after we have helped to select a decent Dem standard bearer?
Do we just have to lay down and accept Hillary? Dear God, can't we have someone else? Anyone else?
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correction
[Read the article: The false Beltway script never changes]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]Ned Lamont won the primary. Dem primary voters voted for him. So I don't get what you meant by that. I also don't get by what you mean by, "left to themselves".
Kitt, that was a hasty mistake. I know Lamont won the primary. But he lost the election. The point I was trying to make was that I think Dem voters, like the electorate at large, tend to be uninformed. And that uninformed primary voters are especially dangerous. It is up to us political junkies on the Internet to generate buzz, excitement, information.
PS: for blockqoutes do you put in that tag before and after?
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thanks for your responses
[Read the article: The false Beltway script never changes]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]One last comment -- Hilary may be tough, as you say. But the Republican field is weak,and all of them are flawed by the standards of their own base. Only an anti-Hilary vote, in my view, will turn out their base. I hear this all the time from the nice right-wing ladies I work with.
I'm not saying that the blogosphere should endorse anyone. But why can't we talk about the candidates, like we talk about the other issues?
Failing that, can we at least, at some point, talk about a way to fix the system so we at least have a chance of selecting better candidates?
Also, I find it profoundly disheartening that our politics has turned into an aristocracy of just a few families.